


Have a Little Faith

by Luckythirdshot



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Project Freelancer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-03
Updated: 2016-03-03
Packaged: 2018-05-24 13:57:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6155867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luckythirdshot/pseuds/Luckythirdshot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU- Canon Divergence in which York believes that Carolina is not dead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Have a Little Faith

“And if you know me, you know that my money is on the gal in the Greenish-blue-seafoam Green Turquoise- whatever it is armor.”  
That statement, York knew, had been a desperate bid to whatever luck the universe had always seemed to withhold from him. A bid as illogical, he had been told, as shouting into the air.  
Well, York mused, love was rarely logical. With Carolina, it had been far past illogical. It was beautiful. It was… well, unexplainable, beyond the connotation of love.  
When he had been told that she had died, he did not believe it. Not the woman who had jumped off a three-hundred story building. Not the woman who was the best- and, he stressed, the absolute best- in their advanced group of soldiers. Not the woman who had saved his life countless times.  
Not Carolina, the woman who had survived everything, had been through hell and back so many times.  
No, he had faith in her. More faith than anyone could place on luck. It had to be Carolina.  
If he didn’t have faith, he had nothing. If he didn’t believe in his ‘Lina, he couldn’t live to see another day. Carolina would never abandon her family- and he fervently believed that this was what the members of Project Freelancer had become. The home that none of them had ever had. Perhaps it had been taken from them. She would die before she left them, and she wasn’t going to die, she couldn’t, she was fucking invincible.  
“Agent York, may I suggest that you resume normal routines to settle your emotional turmoil?” Delta popped up slightly to his left, his glow dimmed. The darkness of the room still made York squint from the light.  
At the thought of doing as such, however, York winced. The suggestion recalled memories in which he would sit with a mug of coffee, legs propped up, watching over his lover as she trained night after late night.  
Damn it all. He just wanted to embrace Carolina again. To know that she was safe, and feel her warmth on his fingertips. He longed to see the light freckles that were spread along her porcelain skin, to see her fire-red hair splay across her shoulders. York longed for her smile, the one sight he knew would always be perfect. So instead of replying to Delta, he simply buried his head in his arms.  
“Agent York, I am concerned with your present conditions,” Delta said with a little hesitation. “I am not capable of correcting the wrongs that have caused this behavior. I must admit, I am quite unable to determine a course of action beyond a normal schedule.”  
“D. I just…. I need some time, buddy. It’s only been a few days.” He didn’t quite know if the timeframe was correct, but Delta seemed to understand (or at least to take his tone into mind) and vanished once more.  
To be fair, York thought, he was a little better. The first day had been worse than hell on Earth. It had crushed him, to be told that the love of his life had been thrown viciously off of a cliff by one of his trusted friends. Nothing and nobody could coax him out of his bed, let alone his room. North had tried the hardest, had offered to stay with him, but York couldn’t think of anyone but Carolina, and having anyone in the room seemed like he was trying to fill Carolina’s absence. The very thought of anything like that was unbearable. Every second he was slammed with memories of her, thoughts of her as she was training, their meeting at the bar, how they had recognized each other at the Project Freelancer initiation. How the fiery redhead had something, some spark about her that had ensnared York’s love immediately. The first night, he had slept on and off, never remaining asleep for more than half an hour. It was all he could do at the time to stay afloat when he just felt like he was drowning. Gasp for breath amidst the devastation that his grief had caused. He was in that state for a few days. North had come multiple times, when he could get away, and tried to keep York updated. Though York didn’t speak and hardly moved, North remained dedicated. York had started to lose track of the time, not knowing whether it was night or daytime for everyone else, when Wash had rushed into his room to report that there was a former freelancer that was reported breaking into facilities, and that said freelancer was female. North agreed with Delta when they told him not to get his hopes up.  
Yesterday, he had decided that Carolina was alive when he had recorded his journal entry about Carolina being the rogue freelancer. His whole being was devoted to the need for Carolina being that rogue soldier.  
York felt excited for the first time in a while. He had to help the rogue freelancer somehow.  
-  
Two weeks with no incident close enough to home to do anything, yet York still insisted on clinging to his hopes. His friendly mischief-maker was still terrorizing little, out-of-the-way bases that belonged to the project. When they had discussed the topic quietly at meals, he found that South was in strong opposition of the female former freelancer. It had taken all of York’s restraint to keep himself from punching the woman after a particularly colorful string of insults, after which North silenced his sister, obviously having seen York’s mannerisms change.  
He sighed. He had taken to spending every second of his free time at the comms, investing his many sleepless nights anxiously awaiting news of the woman. He needed description, armour color, voice, actions, anything. Night by night, when no news came, he could feel the world become a bit more restricted.  
Tonight had to be the night, he chanted under his breath. It had become a sort of ritual- along with ignoring Delta’s calculation of the probability of his statement.  
But tonight had to be the night, because Carolina would never leave her team. Would never leave him.  
Much to York’s surprise, that night was actually the night. He was wide awake, despite it being four in the morning. He had been fiddling with the frequencies of all the known minor Freelancer-owned facilities when he heard it. It was an SOS. He jumped forward, adrenaline pumping through his veins. He switched past a few times while adjusting the radio because of his trembling hands, but he finally heard it.  
“Command, two AWOL soldiers! They appear to be…..” A short pause punctuated with heavy breathing, “Agents Carolina and Texas!”  
York was deaf to it all after that. He sat heavily back into the chair, relief flooding his mind, tears in his eyes. Carolina was alive. She really was. In fact, she was alive and kicking ass. Less than five minutes and it was obvious that they had silenced the place. He felt pride at that.  
After listening to the radio silence for five more minutes, he decided to go to bed. He was a mix of tired sleeplessness and energy, though all of it was overruled by joy.  
He basically collapsed in his bed, sinking into a proper sleep for the first time in quite a while.  
When North shook him awake in the morning, York smiled up at the ceiling, positively beaming at the prospect for the future. North simply looked at him as if he had suddenly lost his mind.  
“North, she’s alive. She’s alive and she’s fighting and she’s going to come and get us, I know she will.” York looked over to his blond friend, and after the initial shock that showed plain on his face, York saw his eyes crinkle and his mouth stretch upwards. Though his words were child-like due to his excitement, North had obviously connected the dots in between.  
“You’re sure?” North said through a grin.  
“They said ‘They appear to be agents Carolina and Texas!’ Carolina lived. I knew she would, I told you to have faith, that woman is just as stubborn as I am!” He swung himself up from his bed and hugged North. “If she’s fighting, I will too, I swear. She’s our leader, and if she knows what she’s doing, then it makes sense for me to follow. I can help her pick locks, I can keep D with us, and I can cover her when she goes on missions that she knows are for more than one person, because let’s be honest, she does that way too often!” York was basically bouncing, babbling absentmindedly about his plans. North just smiled, probably happy to see York happy for the first time in weeks.  
York elatedly jumped out of his bed, hastily dressed himself, and launched himself out the door, barely hearing North mumble about how alike York was to a puppy. Theta once again asked North if they could adopt a dog, which only prompted a chuckle from both of the men.  
York was in a whole different world for the attention he paid that day. He was busy devising plans and running them through Delta, trying to cover every possibility and even some of the impossibilities. North had barely hidden laughs the several times that York was chastised for not paying attention- after which he heard the Director preach about ‘people on the battlefield not being so lenient’ for the millionth time.  
It didn’t matter. One day soon, Carolina would retrieve her team, and he would cover her back as she dove upon her enemies like the very image of an avenging angel. Nobody could stop his ethereal lover as she mercifully dispatched justice upon the deserving.  
Delta had just told him that it was illogical to compare a woman with a supernatural creature, no matter how enhanced she was. He also reminded York for the upteenth time that Agent Carolina had not been confirmed to be AWOL, but still was defined as KIA in her files.  
“Have a little faith, D. If anyone can survive a plunge from a cliff, it would be ‘Lina. And she’d probably look fucking perfect through the whole thing,” He said with a chuckle, remembering the woman with whom he had flirted at that bar. She still looked impeccable, even being bored with a light blue and slightly shiny tank-top and ripped jeans in the middle of a run-down bar. He reminded Delta that Carolina had survived what other men had deemed impossible before. D just made a little noise of disapproval and went dark for a while.  
Nothing could sway him from his belief in Carolina, not even his logic-oriented AI.  
-  
It was another month before his faith was rewarded. When the alarms went off, almost everyone thought of it as some unexpected test, or some rookie pulling the lever as a joke again (Which, York mused, wasn’t all that probable after what had happened to the last guy to pull that prank.)  
Instead of panicking or heading towards the designated room for emergencies, York hopped to his feet and raced to the locker room. He grabbed the door frame and swung himself into the room, slamming into his locker. It took him a second longer than usual to open his lock, but when he did, he yanked it off of his locker and hastily donned all his armour. Delta was in the process of telling him that his choices were ‘unwise,’ and that he should immediately report to authority. York laughed and shot out of the room and into the hallway, running as fast as humanly possible.  
When he reached the point of breach, he wanted to cry tears of sheer joy. There stood Carolina and Tex, outlined by the evening light, guns trained on him. That didn’t matter much.  
“CAROLINA!” York yelled, running further towards them. Carolina hesitated for a moment, then trained her gun on his helmet.  
“Did they send you to reach me first?” Carolina questioned, her voice hard.  
“No, God no. I’m not supposed to be here. But I don’t care, because I know you have a reason, and whatever it is, I know that it’s right, because you wouldn’t do this if there wasn’t,” York babbled. “I want to help, I’ve been monitoring the comms since-” He stopped suddenly. He still couldn’t say it, even seeing her right in front of him, as alive as she ever had been.  
“So they told you that I had died, I guess.” Carolina sounded grim. York simply nodded, completely silent. She looked over at Tex, who nodded slowly. Carolina lowered her guns, and York launched himself at her, swooping her up in an embrace.  
It took his breath away to feel her warm skin through the kevlar suits, to bury his nose in her hair that smelled faintly of gunpowder and lavender. She was alive and real and she was right there.  
“Alright, York, we have to work now,” Carolina chuckled. Reluctantly, York let go, only to see Tex glaring daggers at him. In fact, she held an actual dagger, and it almost looked like she wanted to use it. His eyes went wide, and as if Tex could see his expression through his helmet, she lowered it. He wasn’t quite sure why. Maybe she thought that he was holding them up and wasting their precious time.  
As Carolina strode forward, confidence plain in her posture as always, he fell in step behind her.  
“So what are we doing now?”  
“Well,” Carolina said, “We can start with this lock.”

**Author's Note:**

> Had to write some York/Carolina, since I've loved them since the beginning! I hope you guys enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. (Also, I decided that Tex would be a little protective of Carolina. I have to figure that people grow closer to each other while running from/fighting a super secret military program.)


End file.
